The flagship of five next-generation Hywind floating offshore wind turbines has been towed into place at Statoil’s 30MW Buchan Deep pilot project, 15 miles off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland.
The 11,500-tonne units, made up of spar-buoy floating foundations topped with Siemens 6MW SWT-6.0-154, have been assembled at Bassoe Offshore’s Stord yard, on the west coast of Norway.
Located in some 100-metres of water, Buchan Deep will power about 20,000 homes.
Lindsay Roberts, senior policy manager at industry body Scottish Renewables, commented: "This is a hugely exciting development for a ground-breaking project. The potential global market for floating offshore wind technologies is significant, so it's fantastic to see Scotland once again at the forefront of an innovative, burgeoning industry.”
Statoil is operator and majority owner of the Hywind Scotland pilot park with a 75% interest, together with Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, with 25%.
The Norwegian giant greenlighted the NKr2bn ($236m) Buchan Deep project, also known as Hywind Scotland, in 2015, with the stated expectation of achieving a per megawatt cost reduction as great as 70% compared to the company's original pilot project.
